


The Circle of Life

by Molly



Category: NSYNC
Genre: M/M, Popslash - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-18
Updated: 2008-09-18
Packaged: 2017-10-01 23:51:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Molly/pseuds/Molly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>"JC," he said, trying to sound nonchalant. He turned one way and peered into the mirror, then turned around another and peered again. "Do you think this hat makes my head look big?"</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	The Circle of Life

**Author's Note:**

> _Flashfic written for torch and mia, who requested it specifically; also, they are on crack._

"I think Justin's head is getting bigger," JC said, leaning over Joey to talk to Chris. Justin and Lance were playing slap-jack on the nice, wide, glass-topped coffee table JC had just had flown in from Italy, and Lance was losing. Lance was losing badly.

"Fucking ow!" Lance shouted as Justin's hand slammed down directly on top of his; he yanked his hand back and rubbed the back of it, glaring. "That fucking hurt!"

"That table's new," JC said weakly. "It's our third coffee table this month."

Justin smiled at his boyfriend and pulled all the cards to his side of the table. "Sorry." He didn't sound sorry at all.

"I had that, those are mine, just because you resorted to _violence_\--"

"If you can't protect your spoils, man," Justin said to Lance sweetly, "do you really think you deserve to keep them?"

"It's like, it's really big, dude," JC said quietly into Joey's ear. "Don't you think so?"

"I don't get between boyfriends."

He leaned over more. "Chris?"

"Propaganda," Chris hissed loyally. He really did think so, but he would never, ever admit it. He glared at JC and inched away toward the far side of the couch. "Shut the fuck up. And stay off the JJB."

  
   


* * *

  
   


But Justin's head really was getting bigger. He could feel it, like an itch between his ears, and he could see it when he looked in the mirror. At first he thought his eyes were just getting closer together, but it was more than that. He asked JC about it in their bedroom one morning while they got dressed for the day.

"JC," he said, trying to sound nonchalant. He turned one way and peered into the mirror, then turned around another and peered again. "Do you think this hat makes my head look big?"

JC twitched. "What?"

"Does this hat," Justin said clearly, "make my head look bigger."

"Uh, no, honey," JC said. He ducked into their closet, flipping through a rack of shirts so loud they jangled.

"Are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure." His voice was muffled and distant, like he was tunneling through to Narnia.

Justin waited, hands on his hips. A few seconds later, JC emerged, triumphant, brandishing a white and blue checked sombrero. "Try this one."

"JC." Justin looked first at the hat, then at JC. He glared. "That's a sombrero."

"I like it," JC said firmly. "It brings out your eyes."

  
   


* * *

  
   


The call came while JC was in the studio; he fled, notebook pages flying in his wake. He didn't remember driving to the hospital or arriving there, but suddenly he was at Justin's bedside, clutching one limp, pale hand in both of his own. "Justin," he said helplessly, eyes darting to the bandage covering one side of Justin's head. "Honey."

"This," Justin said in a slow, vicious voice, "is all your fault."

"But." JC swallowed hard. "I. How?"

Justin climbed off the bed. He stood unsteadily, held up by righteous indignation. Slowly, he peeled the bandage back.

JC reeled. His hands went out behind him, flailing for support; he found a wall, hit it, slid down it to the floor. "Oh. Justin." The words came out of him on a sad, pained sigh. "Oh, no. How could this happen?"

"I don't know!" Justin windmilled his arms in anger and confusion; sickeningly, the tiny arm sticking out of his ear windmilled, too. "How does it ever happen?!"

JC's eyes widened. "Not like that," he said, eyes irresistibly drawn to the hand even now fumbling for leverage on the rim of Justin's ear. "_Definitely_ not like that."

  
   


* * *

  
   


"Hush," Joey said, stroking JC's hair. "Hush, baby, it'll be okay."

"It won't," JC choked out. Tears streamed down his face and soaked Joey's t-shirt. "It won't. He doesn't want me anymore. He doesn't love me."

"Oh, shut up," Justin snapped from the bed. "I do too. I just -- OW!" He jerked away from the nurse, screeching. "Ow, ow, OW! what the FUCK!"

"Mr. Timberlake," she said calmly. "Please do not take that tone with me."

"Please," he mocked in a pissed-off falsetto, "do not yank my _brains_ out through my _ears_, and I'll try to moderate my fucking _tone_, is that acceptable to you?"

"Fine," she said, still calm, her voice almost sweet. "Hold still." She leaned over and addressed the tiny head sticking out of Justin's ear. "This is gonna sting a bit, little man. You find anything in there you want to bring out with you," she suggested, "be my guest."

"I don't think it's mine," JC sobbed from the circle of Joey's arms.

Joey hauled him closer.

  
   


* * *

  
   


"What is it?" Lance asked, peering through the glass that separated the five of them from the nursery. In a tiny incubator just on the other side, a tiny little man with a tiny head of spiky black hair sat crosslegged, peering back at them.

"Wow," Joey breathed, beaming. He leaned in so close his breath fogged the window. "He's so little..."

"What?" Justin said loudly, looking up at all their faces. He was in a wheelchair, wearing only a pink hospital gown that didn't quite close behind him. The seat was sticking to him in places it really shouldn't. There was a thick white plaster bandage over his right ear; in swoopy black letters the bandage said, "Get well soon, 'Mom'! Love, Joey."

"Shut _up_," Chris said, slugging Joey in the shoulder. He stared in sick fascination at the thing behind the glass. "Jesus. Just shut up, this is creeping me the fuck out."

"Justin had a ... that ... out of his _head_, man, and you're freaked cause it looks a little bit like you?"

Chris opened his mouth, then thought better of it. Then he shuddered, and ripped his eyes away. "Yeah," he breathed, giving his head a shake. "Oh, _fuck_, yeah."

"Did somebody say something? What?"

JC stepped up behind Justin's wheelchair. His eyes were shining with tears both shed and un. The miracle of birth was infinitely strange and wonderful. The sense of awe that had filled him when the little guy sprang fully formed from Justin's head had somehow transformed JC's anger and sadness into joy.

"I'll love him like he really was mine," JC whispered into Justin's good ear. "It doesn't matter where he came from."

"The fuck it doesn't," Justin growled. His brains felt like they'd been run through a blender. He wondered helplessly if his ear would ever be as firm as it used to be. Before the bandages had been taped on, he was pretty sure he'd seen a few stretch marks.

"Why is he blue?" Lance asked suddenly, then clapped his hand over his mouth. Joey and Chris glared at him; JC slugged him on the shoulder.

"That's so uncool, dawg," JC said reproachfully. "He's perfect just the way he is."

"Yeah," Chris chimed in. His eyes narrowed, but Lance could swear he saw them twinkle. "Don't hate."

"Y'all suck." Lance folded his arms and glared at all of them sullenly. "I just said what everybody else was thinking."

"He's so beautiful," JC said in a choked, wondering voice. "I think we should call him Bjork."

  
   


* * *

  
   


Bjork grew. His size doubled every few hours, and his baby blue skin deepened into a blue like the vault of a summer sky. Two days later, when he was roughly Chris's height, he suddenly started to speak.

"Take me to your leader," he said to his mother, and punched him in the nose.

"OW!" Justin shouted. "What the fuck was that for?"

"Justin," JC chided. "Not in front of the baby."

"Take me," Bjork said, "to your leader." He punched JC in the stomach; JC doubled over and fell.

"Fuck," JC said.

"Not in front of the baby," Justin parroted, wheezing through his swollen nose.

"Take me to your leader," Bjork said calmly. "Please."

  
   


* * *

  
   


"This is not your leader," Bjork said, looking down at Chris's fallen, twitching body.

"I coulda told you that," Chris gasped weakly, and passed out.

  
   


* * *

  
   


Johnny said, "Wait. He's your _what_?"

"Alien baby." Justin had a black eye and a broken nose, but he didn't really feel too bad. After giving birth through the middle ear, a few little punches were actually almost pleasant. "He wanted to see you."

"I knew he wasn't mine," JC murmured. Chris just rolled his eyes. "Well, I _did_."

Johnny looked at Bjork. Bjork looked at Johnny. Bjork raised his fist alarmingly; Joey made a grab at him and missed. Johnny stood firm.

After a second, Bjork's fingers relaxed and his arm dropped down to his side. "You are the leader," Bjork said. He smiled happily.

Johnny's eyes flicked over the rag-tag band of prettyboys arrayed around his office. "Sort of," he allowed. "What can I do for you?"

"I can sing," Bjork said bashfully. He blushed, a pearlescent navy deepening the color in his cheeks. "And dance, a little."

Justin's eyes widened. "You are kidding me."

"Well, I'm no Justin Timberlake, _mom_," Bjork snapped, "but I do okay for myself."

"No," Justin said, shaking his head rapidly from side to side, "you are fucking _kidding_ me." He backed up until his shoulder blades hit the wall.

JC, on the other hand, stepped forward. His fingers twitched spastically, as if flicking at invisible controls. "Did you say," he demanded, eyes blazing fiercely, "did you say you can sing?"

"Did you say _Bjork_ was the alien?" Chris hissed into Justin's ear, and Justin hissed back, "shut _up!_"

"Johnny," JC said softly, sweetly, in a tone that made his bandmates flow like a nervous, rising tide toward the exits. "Do you think we could get a little time in your studio?"

"Uh. Sure, C," Johnny said reassuringly. "Whatever you need."

Bjork beamed at JC and stepped forward to take his hand. "Dad."

"Son." JC beamed back at Bjork, then beamed at the rest of the room. "Maybe he is mine, after all," he said. "I think he has my eyes."

  
   


* * *

  
   


"Why does he get to be the dad?" Justin whined to Chris when they'd gone, trailing Johnny and the rest of the guys behind them. "I carried him, I nourished him, I bore him of my own body, and JC gets to be the dad?"

Chris just looked at Justin witheringly. After a second, Justin sighed and dropped his eyes. "Okay, nevermind."

"Look on the bright side," Chris said, slinging an arm around Justin's neck. "In twelve years or so he'll sue you for emancipation, and you'll be free."

"That's true," Justin said, brightening. He hugged Chris tight, pulling him flush against his body. "I really love you, man. I really, really love you."

"I love you too, kid," Chris murmured. He pressed closer, and hummed into the shell of Justin's firm, nubile human ear. For a second -- just a second -- a wave of otherworldly blue shimmered beneath Chris's skin, there and gone.

Justin shuddered, feeling strange and sexy and confused. "Um...Chris?"

"Shhhh."

Chris stroked Justin's earlobe softly, and smiled.


End file.
